GREAT SNIPE. 3803 
much more recently Mr. T. W. Cremer, of Beeston, near 
Cromer, killed five in one day out of a turnip field 
in that neighbourhood, which he describes as rising 
slowly, like woodcocks in the open, and spreading their 
tails.* Between the 6th and 19th of September, 1856, a 
bird-stuffer, at Norwich, received five specimens from the 
vicinity of Hickling and Horning, two of which were 
killed at one shot on a barley layer; and in September, 
1862, a more than usual number were shot in the neigh- 
bourhood of Yarmouth, but it is somewhat remarkable 
that in the autumn of 1868, when, as shown by the 
various records in the “ Zoologist”’ (pp. 1422, 1460, 
and 1461) and other journals, these birds were extra- 
ordinarily abundant in the south of England,+ I could 
not ascertain that more than two, or three examples 
at most, had been killed in this county. 
This species is at once distinguishable from the 
common snipe, by the under parts of the plumage 
being barred throughout, the lower parts of the body 
in Scolopax gallinago being pure white. Besides this 
marked difference, however, the legs are somewhat 
stouter in the great snipe, and the beak shorter in 
proportion to the size of the bird, whilst the number 
of the tail feathers is sixteent instead of fourteen as 
in the common snipe; but I cannot quite agree with 
some authors that the eyes are proportionately higher 
in the head. The whole bulk of the bird, comparing 
* By some authors this bird is described as uttering no sound 
on rising, but Selby remarks that “when flushed” the great snipe 
generally utters a cry in some degree similar to that of the common 
species, but shorter and hoarser. 
+ Selby speaks of their being unusually plentiful in the year 
1826, which, like 1868, was a very dry and warm season. 
t¢ Mr. E. H. Rodd recorded in the “ Zoologist” for 1868 (p. 
1482) a specimen of this bird, killed at Camelford, Cornwall, with 
several others, which had eighteen instead of sixteen tail feathers. 
